Samuel Moyn, Herlinde Pauer-Studer, Alexander Somek, Fabio Wolkenstein

LIBERALISM AGAINST ITSELF
The Cold War Roots of Liberalism´s Present Crisis

By the middle of the twentieth century, many liberals looked glumly at the world modernity had brought about, with its devastating wars, rising totalitarianism, and permanent nuclear terror. They concluded that, far from offering a solution to these problems, the ideals of the Enlightenment, including emancipation and equality, had instead created them. The historian of political thought Samuel Moyn argues that the liberal intellectuals of the Cold War era—among them Isaiah Berlin, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Karl Popper, Judith Shklar, and Lionel Trilling—transformed liberalism but left a disastrous legacy for our time. In his new book “Liberalism Against Itself” Moyn outlines how Cold War liberals redefined the ideals of their movement and renounced the moral core of the Enlightenment for a more dangerous philosophy: preserving individual liberty at all costs. In denouncing this stance, as well as the recent nostalgia for Cold War liberalism as a means to counter illiberal values, Moyn presents a timely call for a new emancipatory and egalitarian liberal philosophy—a path to undoing the damage of the Cold War and to ensuring the survival of liberalism.

Herlinde Pauer Studer, Alexander Somek and Fabio Wolkenstein will discuss with Samuel Moyn his findings and thoughts.

 

Samuel Moyn is Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University and author of many books on the history of ideas and politics in the twentieth century

Herlinde Pauer-Studer is Professor emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Vienna

Alexander Somek is Professor of Legal Philosophy at the Faculty of Law, University of Vienna

Fabio Wolkenstein is Associate Professor at the Institute for Political Science, University of Vienna

 

Samuel Moyn:

• Liberalism Against Itself. Cold War Intellectuals and the Making of Our Times
   Yale University Press, September 2023, ISBN 978-030-0266214

• Der Liberalismus Gegen sich selbst. Intellektuelle im Kalten Krieg und die Entstehung der Gegenwart
  Aus dem Amerikanischen von Christine Pries
  Suhrkamp Wissenschaft, 978-3-518-58816-1, erscheint 9. Sept. 2024

 

Helfried Carl im Gespräch mit Franz Vranitzky, Sabine Herlitschka, Judith Kohlenberger und Paul Schmidt

EUROPA NEU GEDACHT

 

Vor 30 Jahren, am 12. Juni 1994, stimmten die Österreicher:innen für den Beitritt zur Europäischen Union. Heute muss sich das Land aktuellen und richtungsweisenden Entwicklungen stellen: Statt Ablehnung und Zögerlichkeit braucht es eine optimistische Neudefinition der europäischen Schwerpunkte.

Die Herausforderungen, vor denen die EU steht, sind so groß wie nie: Der russische Angriffskrieg auf die Ukraine stellt die Sicherheitsordnung Europas infrage; der Klimawandel fordert zukunftsorientiertes Handeln; Migration und der Schutz der Außengrenzen verlangen gemeinsame Strategien und Lösungen; die Einflussnahme externer Akteur:innen auf liberale Demokratien wird immer problematischer und nicht zuletzt geraten Rechtsstaatlichkeit und gemeinsame Grundwerte unter Druck.

Wie kann mit all dem umgegangen werden? Im Sammelband »Europa neu gedacht«, herausgegeben von der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Europapolitik, zeigen rund 30 spannende Kommentare von Expert:innen aus unterschiedlichen Bereichen der Gesellschaft auf, wie sich Österreich für ein starkes Europa einsetzen kann.

 

Franz Vranitzky, Bundeskanzler a.D., Gründungs- und Ehrenpräsident des Kreisky Forums

Sabine Herlitschka, Vorstandsvorsitzende der Infineon Technologies Austria AG, Vizepräsidentin der Industriellenvereinigung Österreich

Judith Kohlenberger, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Sozialpolitik an der WU Wien, Senior Researcher am Österreichischen Institut für Internationale Politik (oiip) und am Jacques-Delors-Centre der Hertie School Berlin affiliiert, Trägerin des Kurt Rothschild Preises

Paul Schmidt, Generalsekretär der Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Europapolitik

Moderation:
Helfried Carl, Partner des von ihm mitbegründeten Innovation in Politics Institute in Wien

 

Österreichische Gesellschaft für Europapolitik (Hg.):
Europa neu gedacht. Wie ein aktives Österreich zu einem starken Europa beitragen kann
Czernin Verlag Wien, 2024, ISBN: 978-3-7076-0838-0, € 23,-

100 JAHRE ZSOLNAY
Zsolnay Lesefest im Belvedere 21, Arsenalstraße 1, 1030 Wien

 

Armin Thurnher

MEIN LEBEN ALS KLAVIER
Instrumentierte Lesung

 

Über Übergänger, Untergänge und die Würde der Republik.
Eine Art musikalische Autobiographie auf dem für den „Schwanzer-Pavillon“ von Schlesinger/Felsenstein entworfenen Bösendorfer-Klavier.

 

Armin Thurnher, Herausgeber und Chefredakteur der Wiener Stadtzeitung Falter.

 

In Kooperation mit Zsolnay Verlag

Robert Misik in conversation with James Galbraith

INFLATION, SANCTIONS AND INDUSTRIAL POLICY
Thoughts on the Disorder in Economic Thought

 

James K. Galbraith, one of the leading left-wing American economists, examines the economic policy debates in the USA and Europe: inflation has led to real wage losses in Europe, but also to rising costs for companies, particularly in industry. However, the USA has been quicker to get inflation under control and, with the Biden administration’s “Inflation Reduction Act”, has put together a package of investments in infrastructure as well as subsidies for ecological transformation. But is this the new form of industrial policy that is needed? Galbraith is skeptical.

In Europe, on the other hand, the spectre of “de-industrialization” is already being raised, not least due to the rise in energy prices and production costs in general. How can the European economy respond to this? The programs to date are little more than a drop in the ocean. What needs to be done to achieve a prosperous economy that lifts all boats, not just the luxury yachts? Justice, innovation and ecological transformation – do they go together?

 

James Galbraith is an American economist. He is currently a professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and at the Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College and part of the executive committee of the World Economics Association, created in 2011.

Robert Misik, Author and Journalist

Philipp Blom im Gespräch mit Wolfgang Müller-Funk

SELBSTZERSTÖRUNG DER DEMOKRATIE, TENDENZEN UND WIEDERKEHREN IM KURZEN 20. JHD.
In Erinnerung an Manès Sperber

 

Manès Sperber, geb. 1905 in Sabolotiw, Ukraine, wurde als skeptischer Humanist und unerbittlicher Kritiker totalitärer Systeme bekannt. Er lehrte an verschiedenen Hochschulen in Berlin. Für seine Bücher erhielt er zahlreiche Literaturpreise. Manès Sperber starb am 5. Februar 1984 in Paris. Seine Werke waren in den letzten Jahren nur mehr im Antiquariat greifbar. Mit einer kommentierten dreibändigen Leseausgabe, die im April 2024 erschienen ist, macht der Verlag Sonderzahl Sperbers Schriften nun wieder zugänglich.

Herausgeber Wolfgang Müller-Funk auf die Frage, warum es sich lohnt, Manès Sperber heute zu lesen und über seine Texte zu diskutieren:

„… weil er ein Autor ist, der eine Epoche literarisch und analytisch durchdrungen hat, die von der Oktoberrevolution bis zum Niedergang und Ende des sowjetischen Sozialismus reicht.
… weil seine Analyse von Macht und Diktatur, die sein literarisch-essayistisches Werk durchzieht, unschätzbare Hilfe leistet, die psychischen und sozialen Mechanismen zu begreifen, die dem heutigen Rechts- und Linkspopulismus zugrunde liegen.
… weil er wie kaum ein anderer die Individualpsychologie weiterentwickelt und auf politische Phänomene angewandt hat.“

 

Wolfgang Müller-Funk, Germanist, Kulturphilosoph, Essayist, studierte Germanistik, Philosophie, Geschichte und Spanisch in München. Er war Professor für Kulturwissenschaften in Birmingham und Wien und u.a. Fellow an der New School for Social Research in New York und am Institut für die Wissenschaft vom Menschen in Wien. Er ist Buchautor und Verfasser von Essays und Rezensionen in diversen deutschsprachigen Zeitungen und Zeitschriften. Und er ist Präsident der Manès Sperber-Gesellschaft.

Philipp Blom studierte Philosophie, Geschichte und Judaistik in Wien und Oxford. Er lebt als Schriftsteller und Historiker in Wien und schreibt regelmäßig für europäische und amerikanische Zeitschriften und Zeitungen.

Tessa Szyszkowitz in conversation with Kirsty Lang

THE BBC UNDER PRESSURE
How public broadcasters adapt to the 21^st century

 

The British Broadcasting Corporation BBC is considered to be the best public television and radio station in the world. But is it still? For years “Auntie Beeb” has been struggling with adapting to the changing landscape of media in the 21^st century. Younger viewers leave TV for other, newer, faster media. Subsequently the discussion about the license fee has been gathering speed. Should every household pay a yearly fee to support professional, balanced, high-quality television – including high quality news programs which seem ever more important in uncertain times, when fake news floods our information channels.

Public broadcasters and their financing models are under threat – not only because they need to think about new financing models – should they allow advertising or not? There is also political pressure on the BBC – heightened during the period of the populist Brexit government under Boris Johnson – but public broadcasters always have to fend off undue influence. These developments are difficult challenges not only for the BBC, but all public broadcasters like ORF and ARD. Kirsty lang will discuss in conversation with Tessa Szyszkowitz how the BBC is dealing with the situation and which lessons different public broadcasters could learn from each other.

 

Kirsty Lang is a journalist, broadcaster and former foreign correspondent with wide ranging global experience. She spent most of her career in the BBC working as a reporter, a foreign correspondent, and a TV news anchor. She also presented BBC Radio’s flagship arts programme Front Row for 19 years. She is also a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and the Financial Times (for whom she has written about Vienna’s social housing model) Kirsty also chairs the boards of the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead, Newcastle and the environmental NGO, Global Witness.

Tessa Szyszkowitz, journalist, author and historian, is a foreign affairs commentator and UK correspondent for Falter. Her last book was Echte Engländer, Britain & Brexit (2018). She is also Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

 

Book Presentation

Viola Raheb in conversation with Hind Kabawat, Randa Siniora and Heidemarie Winkel

WOMEN`S POLITICAL BIOGRAPHIES IN THE MENAT REGION

At the end of the conference at the Bruno Kreisky Forum in November 2023 on „Women’s lives and agency in the MENAT Region- between political activism and realism“, women from different countries and backgrounds were invited to shed light on their contexts, socio-economic and political developments, violence – especially gender-based violence – in times of war and its impact on women’s lives, engagement and agency. With the rise of populism and reactionary movements, women’s rights seem to need to be renegotiated. As a result of polarization and ambivalence, listening to and understanding women from the MENAT region is becoming less important.
In many Western countries, a hegemonic perception of the lives and work of women in the MENAT region prevails and a knowledge deficit compared to other regions of the world, e.g. Latin America, still exists. The book aims to give female political actors from the region a face and a name by using biographical essays as a method of knowledge production and awareness-raising, while promoting synergies and advocating the need for networking and cooperation.

„Eleven biographies from seven different countries from diverse generations, backgrounds, and areas of engagement are presented in this book. In their biographies, the contributors address political developments over the last decades in their countries and the region. Historical political phases, be it the end of the colonial rule and the phase of independence in Tunisia, the Baath-rule era and the war in Syria, or the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 and the continuing wars and displacement of Palestinians, become embodied in the lives of the women narrators and how these phases shaped and still shape their lives and work.” Viola Raheb, Co-Editor

 

Welcome:
Getraud Auer Borea d’Olmo, General Secretary of the BKF

Introductory remarks:
Ursula Plassnik, former Federal Minister for European and International Affairs, Ambassador ret.

 

Hind Kabawat, former deputy head of the Syrian Negotiation Commission’s Geneva Office and a former member of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC); President of TASTAKEL women’s organization for women’s empowerment and peacebuilding

Randa Siniora, General director of the Women´s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling and Palestinian human rights activist

Heidemarie Winkel, professor of sociology at Universität Bielefeld and senior research associate at the VHI/St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge University (UK)

Viola Raheb, scholar of religious studies lecturer, writer and Senior Fellow at BKF

 

Cathrin Kahlweit in conversation with Boris Akunin

CONSCIENCE AND PROTEST – WRITING ABOUT RUSSIA

 

Boris Akunin is much more than just a renowned author and famous for his bestselling crime stories; he is also considered a beacon of courage in challenging times. With a literary repertoire spanning numerous genres and captivating millions of readers worldwide, Akunin’s works have earned him international acclaim and admiration.

In addition to his literary pursuits, Boris Akunin is a vocal critic of Russia’s government, speaking out against injustice and advocating for politcal change. After manipulated Duma elections in 2011 he became one of the organisers of the so called Bolotnaya protests in Moscow. Akunin’s books have faced censorship and have been banned from Russian bookshops and libraries due to his criticism of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Today he lives in exile – and still gets attacked by the Russian government, calling him an “enemy to the Russian people” and a “foreign agent”, therefore he has been included in Russia’s «terrorists and extremists list» with an international arrest warrant issued.

 

Boris Akunin, the pseudonym of Grigory Chkhartishvili, is a renowned Russian writer celebrated for his historical detective fiction. Through his captivating novels, he delves into the complexities of Russian society, blending thorough historical detail with captivating storytelling. Akunin explores themes of morality and identity while maintaining a keen eye on contemporary Russia. After his critique on the Russian attack on Ukraine, his books have been banned from Russian bookshops and libraries.

Cathrin Kahlweit, journalist and publicist, Süddeutsche Zeitung correspondent for Central and Eastern Europe